hotels | Ithacating in Cornell Heights

Holiday Inn Express Construction Update, 5/2016

25 05 2016

The new Holiday Inn Express at 371 Elmira Road seems to be coming along fairly quickly. Framing was completed a few weeks ago, and at this point most of the windows have been fitted. For those concerned that this is going to be a battleship grey eyesore, fear not. The plywood will be covered with varying colors of an Exterior Insulated Finishing System (EIFS, a synthetic stucco) and stone veneer. The grey is most likely a moisture barrier. Drainage cavities are then built over the barrier to allow water that has penetrated the surface to exit the wall without wrecking it (a big problem with early EIFS systems).

When finished, the hotel should look a lot like this one, with some minor design differences and an updated color scheme:

The project is being financed with a $5.98 million loan from S&T Bank, a regional bank in Western Pennsylvania, and Eastern Hospitality Advisors, a Buffalo contractor specializing in hotel construction, is managing the build-out.

The 4-story, 79-room hotel is expected to open late this summer.

Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: construction, holiday inn express, hotels, ithaca, photos
Categories : construction, hotels, ithaca, photos

Ithaca Marriott Construction Update, 4/2016

29 04 2016

Just clearing out the photo stash. An interview with Marriott contractor Mark Lane of W. H. Lane Inc. can be found on the Voice here.

Also, in the first photo, that’s probably the third-ugliest BMW in the world.

Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: construction, hotels, ithaca, ithaca marriott, Marriott, photos
Categories : construction, hotels, ithaca, news, photos

Hotel Ithaca Construction Update, 4/2016

27 04 2016

Demolition and site preparation are the task du jour at the Hotel Ithaca at 222 South Cayuga Street. The north wing of hotel rooms is being demolished now, and the west wing of hotel rooms will be demolished once the new building is complete.

The new 30,000 SF, 5-story wing will contain 90 rooms, 2,900 SF of additional meeting space, breakout rooms, and a new fitness center. 100 hotel rooms are being taken offline and demolished, reducing the number available at the hotel from 180 to 170. But, the primary goal of the project is to modernize the Hotel’s offerings, and stay competitive with newer hotels downtown, including the Marriott currently underway, and the Canopy Hilton due to start later this year. The project applied for, an received a 7-year tax abatement under the CIITAP program, making it the only project that has pursued the 7-year option over the more common 10-year enhanced option. CIITAP may not be popular from a P.R. standpoint, but as shown on Ithaca Builds, the high property tax rate downtown plays a large role in the program’s necessity.

Photo from C. Hadley Smith Collection

The Hotel Ithaca originally opened in 1972 as part of the city’s urban renewal plans, initially operating as a Ramada. At the time, it only consisted of the two-story wings, as seen in the 1973 photo above; the 10-story “Executive Tower” was added in 1984/85. The hotel was rebranded as a Holiday Inn until the start of 2014, when it switched to an independent operation as the “Hotel Ithaca”. The Hotel Ithaca was also the working name of the Marriott project early on, so the two projects are easy to mix up. As part of the change, the hotel carried out $2.4 million in renovations (phase one) to the tower rooms and utlities.

Early plans called for a $17.8 million, 140,000 SF addition with a 9-story, 115-room hotel, restaurant and conference center designed by Buffalo-based Roberts, Shackleton and Boy Architects. The conference center was very well received by local officials and business leaders, and is seen as really crucial to Ithaca’s business interests – the city lacks the ability to host mid-size conferences and conventions (midsize meaning about 500 attendees), which sends conventioneers elsewhere. Currently, the lack of meeting space limits conferences to about 250 guests. The addition of a convention facility is seen as a major benefit to downtown retail, as well as other hotels that would handle overflow guest traffic. Convention traffic typically happens during weekdays, when regular tourist traffic is lowest. The plan was later revised to 8 stories and 97 hotel rooms, and then that didn’t move forward due to financial difficulties.

The current project was proposed last September, and as the project had evolved, the tax abatement had to be re-voted (and passed 6-1). A potential third phase calls for a 3-story addition to the 5-story wing, and the coveted conference center, on the corner of W. Clinton and S. Cayuga Streets.

The $15 million second phase is aiming for a completion in May 2017. About 21 new jobs are expected to be created, most of those service positions near or a little above minimum wage.

Hart Hotels of Buffalo, founded by David Hart in 1985 and operating locally under the name Lenroc L.P., is the project developer. Krog Corporation, also of Buffalo and a favorite of Hart Hotels, is the general contractor. NH Architecture of Rochester, another frequent partner of Hart Hotels, is the project architect.

Comments : 6 Comments »
Tags: CIITAP, construction, construction (planned), downtown, hotel ithaca, hotels, ithaca, photos
Categories : hotels, ithaca

Holiday Inn Express Construction Update, 3/2016

22 03 2016

Work on the new Holiday Inn Express at 371 Elmira Road is progressing. the foundation work is currently underway. It looks like they’re going with a shallow, slab-on-grade foundation that spreads the weight of a building all around the concrete slab. The formwork’s been done, and rebar criss-crosses the yet-to-be-poured concrete. The rebar mesh is a reinforcement for the concrete when it gets poured, helping to prevent cracks that may form in the concrete from spreading throughout the foundation and causing major damage. The blue tubes are a part of the under-slab utilities. Elsewhere on the site, it looks like stacks of Tembec and Millar Western Canadian lumber are being used to assemble wood trusses that will be used in the hotel’s wooden frame.

The 4-story, 79-room hotel is expected to open late this summer. Rudra Management and Rosewood Hotels (Jayesh Patel) of suburban Buffalo is the developer.

Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: construction, holiday inn express, hotels, ithaca, photos, suburbia
Categories : construction, hotels, ithaca, news, photos

Ithaca Marriott Construction Update, 2/2016

1 03 2016

Now that the fairly complicated foundation work has been completed, things are moving along at a good pace over at the Marriott construction site in downtown Ithaca. Concrete has now been poured up to the seventh floor of the ten-story building. USG Securock glass-mat sheathing panels are being attached to exterior metal stud walls erected over the lowest levels. The floors are covered in plastic sheets from about the fourth level down, a sign of sprinkler fitting and major utilities roughs-in underway (given the major heat wave in the medium-range forecast, they may not be needed much longer).

A story I’ve heard through the grapevine is that Marriott worked with developer Urgo Hotels to design a new room design format for this Ithaca project. The rooms will be at a premium price point, but somewhat smaller than most comparable hotel rooms, so Marriott is approaching the hotel and the rooms themselves with new styling concepts that make efficient use of the space while maintaining a high-end look and feel to each hotel room. Marriott has a history of working with Urgo for new design areas, so if done well, this will be yet another proverbial feather in their cap.

This project gets a lot of flack from certain angles for not being “Ithaca-like”, but given that the site had been a small, awkwardly-accessed parking lot since the Green Street garage was erected in the early 1970s, it’s a huge, huge improvement. The hotel’s 160 rooms are expected to average occupancy between 70 and 80% (the market average is closer to 60%, but new hotels and downtown locations tend to have higher occupancy rates). That translates to 112 to 128 travelers on any typical day who will literally be able to walk right out onto the Commons, eating at restaurants, shopping at the boutique stores and spending their dollars on the “Ithaca-like” businesses that people hold near and dear. Not only does the project create dozens of jobs downtown, it has a real stabilizing effect on other businesses by offering a steady stream of well-heeled customers that will buoy bottom lines and be an asset to shopkeepers and restaurateurs as they ride out slow periods. For nearby businesses, there’s reason to look forward to its August opening.

The $32 million hotel was designed by Cooper Carry Architecture of Atlanta, and Binghamton-based William H. Lane Inc. is the general contractor.

Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: construction, downtown ithaca, hotels, ithaca, ithaca marriott, Marriott, photos
Categories : construction, hotels, ithaca, photos

News Tidbits 1/30/2016: A Doozy of a Week For All the Wrong Reasons

30 01 2016

I’m not going to lie – this was a rough week. For those who like old buildings, the city tore down 404 West Green and 327 West State this week. For those who are consider themselves eco-activists, Black Oak wind farm is on life support. State Street Triangle is likely cancelled, the Printing Press Lounge is off the table, Cornell continues to pour most of its attention on its new New York City campus, and a grocery store and a downtown shop are closing their doors and putting people out of work. There have been better weeks for news round-ups.

1. State Street Triangle isn’t dead per se, but it’s indefinitely stalled. I think the best headline goes to the Ithaca Times since they’re the most accurate. From chatting with planning consultant Scott Whitham, who’s involved with the project, it sounds like the impasse is the result of Campus Advantage wanting to pay less for the site since they can’t build as large of a project, which would decrease their revenue. The contract for the land purchase from Greenstate Properties/Trebloc Development (Rob Colbert) was up for re-negotiation after the December expiration, but neither side wants to budge on what they feel the price should be. So nothing can move forward without a deal between the two parties. I reached out to Colbert Wednesday, but the secretary paused for a minute and then said “he’s, uh, busy in a meeting, care to leave a message?” So he’s probably not going to say anything further.

Could it move forward? Possibly, it could be revived if a deal is made. But as things are, it’s stalled and it’s outside the control of any community group or government authority. It’s definitely a shame from the standpoint of Ithaca’s worsening housing crisis because it’s less that will be entering a market flooded with students, people moving here for work, and wealthy retirees who have apparently decided this is the Asheville of the north. And given the battles of “structural racist gentrification” and “uncivilized crime-producing trouble-making affordable housing“, where everything is accused of being one or the other, I’m not especially hopeful at the moment.

2. Now for something that is definitely dead in the water – The Printing Press Lounge. Developer Ben Rosenblum had wanted to put a jazz lounge in a 7700 SF industrial warehouse at 416 East State Street, but neighbor objections to noise and traffic proved a little too much for the Board of Zoning Appeals, whose members appeared unlikely to support necessary variances for the vacant facility. So the developer pulled the lounge proposal, but the office space and apartment are still under consideration.

3. Also from the same phone conversation as State Street and Printing Press – the Canopy revisions were approved, so at least there’s a good chance that will be breaking ground this Spring. The Chain Works review schedule was also approved, although given the couple emails from the Voice article, the public review period is going to be groan-inducing. One of the letters commanded that nothing should be done there and it should be kept as is because it encourages traffic and “its density is ruining Ithaca”. They might have meant size, but density is a buzzword at the moment. Apparently, they also overlooked the fact that it’s already built and won’t be fully cleaned of toxic chemicals until a reuse plan is in place. The development team will have to respond to all of these comments, perceptive or not.

4. In real estate sales, an LLC in suburban Corning picked up the former Tim Horton’s and Cold Stone Creamery space on Elmira Road. 0.74 acre 407 Elmira sold for $640,000 on January 22nd. A little research into the rather exotically-named “Armiri LLC” shows that they were previously registered at an address home to an Econo Lodge, and that the owners have about 70 or so other LLCs related to hotels and the hospitality industry. A little more digging, and the owner turns out to be Corning-based Visions Hotels, a developer of suburban chain hotels with locations from Albany to Buffalo. So if I were to make a guess, the five-year old Tim Ho’s building won’t be long for this world, and a suburban hotel is likely to rise in its place in a couple years. But we’ll see what happens.

5. Meanwhile, just up the road, Maines will be shutting down their store at 100 Commercial Avenue. The 26,146 SF building was built for the Binghamton-based grocery chain in 2010. February 7th will be the last day. Although there don’t seem to be any figures online, the move will likely put at least a couple dozen people out of work. A phone call and email to Maine’s asking for employee totals and reasons for closure were not returned.

6. Let’s talk about money. The construction loan docs for Collegetown Terrace Phase III were filed with the county this week. The price? A cool $39.25 million, from PNC Bank. That’s just for 247-unit, 344-bed Building 7. Previously Valentine Vision Associates LLC (John Novarr/Philip Proujansky) received $50 million on 8/22/13, $50 million on 7/1/2014, and $50 million on 11/20/14. Do the math out, and $189.25 million in loans is a lot of money. Then again, this is also a 1,200+ bed project.

The latest loan docs require an opening by fall 2018, but expect it to be about a year sooner than that, August 2017.

7. The Ithaca Landmarks Preservation Council has approved the Chapter House plans. All that’s needed at this point are the Building Department permits, which are technical and just require that everything will be built up to code. Things are looking good for that February construction start.

8. Something to look forward to at next month’s Planning Board meeting – further discussion of Cornell’s renovations to Hughes Hall. Planning Board Presentation here, drawings here, Site Plan Review application here. KSS Architects, with offices in Philadelphia and Princeton, will be in charge of design. KSS has been to Cornell’s campus before, having designed some of the Hotel School additions and part of the previous phase of law school renovations. Local firm TG Miller is handling the engineering work. The project is expected to cost $10.2 million and construction would go from June 2016 to July 2017.

Quick refresher, the plan is to renovate 4 floors of what were previously student dorms into academic office, admin and student organization space. Cornell anticipates about 200 construction jobs will be created, but nor more than 80 at any one time, and 20-40 on-site most days. No new permanent jobs, limited visibility, and minimal transportation/ground impacts will limit much of the customary Planning Board debate.

9. Meanwhile, New York City outlets are reporting on the progress of Cornell’s massive new tech campus in New York City. The Real Deal is reporting Snøhetta, an Oslo/NYC architectural firm, will design the Verizon Executive Education Building. The other three buildings underway are the Bloomberg Center, The Bridge, and CornellTECH Residential, which are the work of Morphosis Architecture, Weiss/Manfredi Architecture, and Handel Architects respectively. 300 students and 200 faculty/staff will move into the new 26-story dorm by August 2017. Verizon paid $50 million for their naming rights, and billionaire former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg paid $100 million, making up a sizable portion of the $590.6 million donated to Cornell over the past year. Once the initial wave of construction is complete, it’ll be worth seeing how donations break down – years ago, MetaEzra noted that Weill Medical received an outsized proportion of charitable giving.

Not to go all conspiracy theorist, but there are times when Living in Dryden blogger Simon St. Laurent’s thought piece seems uncomfortably relevant.

10. At the county’s PEDEEQ Committee meeting Friday (PEDEEQ being the acronym for the unnecessarily long Planning, Economic Development, Energy, and Environmental Quality Committee; agenda here), the county did two things worth mentioning here. One, they awarded the $35,000 airport industrial park feasibility study to the team of Clark Patterson Lee of suburban Albany, and Saratoga Springs-based Camoin Associates. Two, they passed a resolution calling for “the Timely Development of the Black Oak Wind Farm” project in Enfield.

The Black Oak opposition really seems to have picked up momentum after one the major landowners involved with the project pulled out. Neighbors in the area are actively attacking the project by calling it a danger to human health and a destructive environmental menace financed by wealthy out-of-towners (a shot at Ithaca), and the wind farm’s executive board is struggling to address these accusations in the revised environmental review due to be completed in April. For the local eco-activist crowd, this is an unwelcome and unusual position to be in because more often than not, they’re the ones opposed to development. The county legislature, which has several green activists, is doing what they can by giving verbal support, and a subtle sort of wrist-slap to the opposition. Dunno if it will work, but we’ll see what happens this spring.

11. Here’s the sketch drawing for Elmira Savings Bank’s new West End Branch at 602 West State Street. It would appear the plans call for a modern addition to the north side of the building, and renovation of the rest of the two-story restaurant into office/service space. Local companies TWMLA and HOLT Architects are handling the design.

According to the Twitter feed of the IJ’s Nick Reynolds, the building plan was received well enough at the Planning Board meeting, but the rest of the plans call for demo of the other buildings, including the affordable housing that had some folks up in arms, for a parking lot. That didn’t go over very well. Demolition of low-cost housing for parking is going to be about as welcome as a Hitler costume at a bar mitzvah. Expect another trip to the board with some revised plans.

12. The Dewitt Park Inn is for sale for $950,000. Owners Tom Seaney and Nancy Medsker are selling the property they purchased for $320k in January 2012 and renovated into a high-end bed and breakfast. The two were vocal advocates for the popular though foregone Franklin/STREAM condo proposal for the Old Library site, although Medsker didn’t do the debate any favors when she decided to trash her rear neighbor, senior services non-profit and Travis Hyde project partner Lifelong in a letter to the Ithaca Journal. The county has the Dewitt Park Inn assessed at $575,000.

13. Nothing too exciting for the town of Ithaca planning board agenda next week. The town’s planning board will choose whether or not to sign off on the review schedule for Chain Works, and they have to re-approved plans for a smaller parish center at St. Catherine of Siena in Northeast Ithaca. According to the provided docs, the parish center has been reduced from 10,811 SF to 8,878 SF due to rapidly rising construction costs (seems to be a common refrain these days).

Comments : 13 Comments »
Tags: canopy hilton, chain works district, chapter house, chapter house rebuild, collegetown terrace, Cornell, cornell tech, DeWitt House, elmira savings bank, environmental issues, hotels, ithaca, law school renovation, State Street Triangle, suburbia, tompkins county, west end
Categories : academic buildings, collegetown, construction (planned), Cornell, environmental issues, hotels, ithaca, news, student housing, Tompkins County

Comparing and Contrasting the Canopy Hotel Designs

26 01 2016

Now with Chain Works published and State Street Triangle covered, it’s time to turn to another project undergoing some major changes, the already-approved Canopy Hilton hotel slated for downtown Ithaca. The cover letter from local project consultant Scott Whitham can be found here, new drawings/renders here.

Some of the figures stay the same – the height, for instance, is still 80′, 92′ to the top of the rooftop mechanical. Some figures have changed a little bit – the gross square footage (GSF) has gone from 74,475 SF to 77,844 SF, which is an enlargement of about 4.5%. The number of hotel rooms has also increased, from 123 to 131.

It looks like the bumpouts (“nooks and crannies”) were reworked, which would explain the revised square footage. The biggest changes appear to be along the western and southern (left and bottom) faces. The cafe patio and restaurant patio are still in place, but it looks like the shade/rock garden went out in favor of a delivery area.

The second-floor rooftop terrace has also been revised. It looks like the area itself has been reduced (assuming those are skylights at the corners), and the fire pits also appear to have been removed. Although not shown, terrace plantings are visible in the elevations.

The internal arrangement has been jostled quite a bit. The hotel bar and cafe used to be towards the south side of the building, now its towards the east. The 2000 SF of standalone restaurant/retail that fronted Seneca Way is also gone, replaced by an expanded house offering. The second floor fitness center has been moved to the first floor where food prep and employee areas used to be, and the soaring two-storm meeting room was also axed.

The outside has also been thoroughly revamped. The original plans called for “buff”-colored brick veneer, pre-cast masonry on the first floor, metal panels for the cornice and “Nobills Grey” fiber cement siding. The new scheme replaces most of the buff brick veneer with “modular” and “canyon smooth” brick veneer, topaz and “Topaz” and “Nobills Grey” fiber cement panels, and metal coping. Both plans use warehouse-style aluminum windows, although they’ve been reshaped in some areas (northeast corner for instance).

As a matter of personal opinion, the new design feels like a step back in a lot of ways, for example when looking SE as in the renders above. But the project had also struggled to obtain financing due to rapidly rising construction costs, which is what brought on a lot of the “value engineering”. For the record, there is financing in place now, whatever that finite amount is. If I were a hypothetical planning board member, I’d be thinking of recommendations that limit cost increase but still improve the appearance. I’d rather see the cornice atop the new southern stairwell go, and have the indents return on the NW fiber cement wall.

Another question that comes to mind offhand has to do with how this affects CIITAP. It doesn’t seem likely this has to go through the whole process again, but would these changes also have to be approved by the IDA as well? Perhaps a knowledgeable reader can chime in.

Comments : 4 Comments »
Tags: architecture, canopy hilton, hotels, ithaca
Categories : architecture, hotels, ithaca

Holiday Inn Express Construction Update, 1/2016

19 01 2016

Nothing too exciting underway yet at the Holiday Inn Express at 371 Elmira Road, but the site is being cleared and prepped for construction. The site combined two tax parcels, one of which held a 7,556 SF 1970s office building, and the other a 960 SF engine repair shop. Both have which have been demolished to make way for the new 11,769 SF, 79-room hotel. Eventually, a retaining wall will be built on the back end (east side) of the parcel, to hold back the slope soil from what will be the hotel’s parking lot. A staircase and sidewalk will connect Spencer Road to the parking lot and Elmira Road.

For those who aren’t especially big fans of chain hotels and corporate architecture, this one appears to have a relatively unique design, while following the standard materials and color scheme (called “Formula Blue“) for new Holiday Inn Expresses. Standard for the HI Express line, the hotel’s lobby will serve as a “great room”, there will be free high-speed internet, and while there will not be any full-service dining, a breakfast bar will be included.

Rudra Management and Rosewood Hotels (Jayesh Patel) of suburban Buffalo is the developer, while Silvestri Architects and Optima Design & Engineering, also of Buffalo, are in charge of design. The project is being financed with a $5.98 million loan from S&T Bank, a regional bank in Western Pennsylvania. The project required a little bit of time to obtain financing, having received approval in March 2014, but now receiving the construction loan until this past October. Another Rudra/Rosewood project just up the road at 339 Elmira Road was not so lucky. A Summer 2016 opening is planned.

holiday_inn_express_v2

holiday-inn-express-original-1

Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: construction, construction (planned), holiday inn express, hotels, ithaca, photos, suburbia
Categories : construction, construction (planned), hotels, ithaca, news, photos

News Tidbits 1/9/2016: Better Late Than Never

9 01 2016

Call it the big news round-up. This is what I get for not writing my weekly roundup last week.

1. We’ll start off with some bad news. The plans for a boutique hotel at 339 Elmira are very likely done and over with. The 37-room, 6,468 SF hotel announced in February 2014 was planned for the 0.59 acre former Salvation Army property on the Southwest side of the city. For whatever their reasons were, the developer, (Rudra Management and Rosewood Hotels of Buffalo, decided put the property up for sale for $395,000. After several months, it finally sold at the discounted price of $300,000 to its next door neighbor, Arizona-based Amerco Real Estate, the parent company of U-Haul. Discounted is a relative term, by the way – Rudra had acquired the vacant property for $143,000 in a land auction in 2013. Back when Salvation Army was still there in 2009, the site sold for $175,000.

So with that sale to Amerco, it’s likely the property will be used for an expanded U-Haul parking lot. It’s unfortunate, but them’s the breaks. For what it’s worth, Rudra has commenced work with the other hotel they had planned, the 79-room Holiday Express at 371 Elmira Road, just down the street.

2. In modest but notable projects, the William George Agency in Dryden received a $2 million construction loan to conduct renovations and roof repairs to its cafeteria area. The non-profit residential treatment center for adolescents had secured building material sales tax abatements from the county to help cover their expenses (the project has originally been planned to start in Q1 2015). The agency, established in the 1890s, employs over 340, making it one of the larger private employers in Tompkins County.

3. Thanks to Nick Reynolds over at the Journal for reminding readers that not every construction project is private. Noted in his writeup of projects that the city intends to fund this year – $430k in road repair projects, another $407k for parking stations, $1.3 million to replace Cass Park rink’s roof, $214k for design work for the new North Aurora street bridge, and $735k for design work for city dam reconstructions.

Perhaps most interesting to readers here will be the $500k that the city intends to spend on design and planning the new Station No. 9. With the awarding of funding from the Upstate Revitalization Initiative, the city can formally explore the possibility of a new fire station on a Cornell parking lot at 120 Maple Avenue. Once a new station is complete, the city could then sell the current Station No. 9, nearly 50 years old and in need of major renovations, to a private developer for redevelopment (the developer who expressed interest in the site is still unknown, but given Collegetown’s expensive real estate market, they must have really deep pockets).

4. More talk of the Biggs Parcel. Jaime Cone at the Ithaca Times provides more details regarding neighbor Roy Luft’s proposal to build for-sale senior housing using the site. Luft is arguing his project is more environmentally friendly than the NRP project, it would take two to three years to come to fruition, that the units would be 700-1,000 SF, and he’s serious about building the senior housing, which is an under-served market. The Indian Creek Neighborhood Association, which has actively fought any sale, seems to at least be open to the idea, if not necessarily a fan of it.

For the record, since the ICNA doesn’t clarify it in their blog post, the county didn’t develop the NRP project. The county put out a request for proposals (RFP) just like they do with every other large development study or offering. Better Housing for Tompkins County and NRP happened to think they had a good project idea and responded to the RFP. It’s been made clear, multiple times, that the county has approached neighbors, Cayuga Medical, INHS and others for months, shopping the land around, and no one has made offers. To be completely honest, even if this land hit the real estate listings, it’s not as if anyone is clamoring to snatch this up; there’s demand to live in and near Ithaca, but land still takes several months to sell on average, and it’s not a stretch to think that developers would avoid this one after the NRP flaying. The county plans to start the listing process later this month if the ICNA doesn’t make an offer by the 15th.

Just a thought, but if $340,000/25.52 acres = $13,333/acre, and the acreage closest to Dates Road is probably developable, than shouldn’t that allow a ballpark fair-value estimate? I know NRP was to pay $500,000, but that had some transit and pedestrian cotingencies attached. Has the ICNA contacted NRP to ask how extensive the wetlands were, is the information on file with the county?

1317 Trumansburg is 10.17 acres, The Biggs parcel 25.52. Combined, they would be 35.69 acres. From the sound of it, Luft would like to reform the parcel boundaries to let his project, however big it may be, to move forward. The site is zoned low-density residential, which means a cluster subdivision can be 2.3 units/acre at maximum. Each structure can have up to 6 units. Taking a guess here, but Luft may be looking at more than 20 units, because anything less than 20 could be done with a subdivision of his current property. For comparison’s sake, the BHTC/NRP project was 58 units.

There is at least the potential that the county gets additional tax dollars from Luft’s project, and the woods would be protected, and there would be a happy ending to this story. But that’s dependent on both sides’ goodwill. Given the years of acrimony, that’s a big leap of faith.

5. For the restaurant-goers out there – Fine Line Bistro’s old spot at 404 West State has a new tenant called “The Rook” opening this month. Mark Anbinder provides the foodie rundown at 14850.com. Mid-tier American bistro/pub fare.

More importantly to this blog is the economic rundown, provided thanks to their application for a loan courtesy of the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency (IURA). The three co-owners, all local restaurateurs, are seeking a $40,000 loan (3.5% interest, 6 year length) to complement their own dollars and a private loan. 8 hired staff (cooks/servers/dishwasher), but none living wage. With cash flow statements, restaurant plans, the menu, loan filings and resumes of the owners, this looks like a Cornell Hotelie’s senior class project.

It’s the IURA’s decision make, but at least it’s nice to know that good restaurant space in Ithaca is in strong demand.

6. Out for bid, Cornell’s Ag Quad renovations. The bid filing estimates the budget at $6.6-6.8 million, and a construction timetable of late March 2016 to Summer 2017. Quoting the first write up from October:

“The $9.6 million project will be broken down into two phases, one that focuses on infrastructure, and one phase on landscape improvements (and being that much of the infrastructure is underground utilities, phase one could be described as churning up the ground, and phase two is making the upturned dirt pretty again). The renovations, which are set to start next summer and run through 2017, will include additional emergency phones, a rain garden, and outdoor gathering spaces in front of Mann Library and Roberts Hall (upper right and lower left in the above render).”

7. Folks love a good rumor, and the Times’ Josh Brokaw had an interesting one to report in his 2016 futurecast regarding State Street Triangle –

“Don’t think that the Austin-based developer is abandoning Ithaca, though a look at their previous projects shows this sort of downtown, mixed-use development is a new frontier for a company accustomed to building student housing mostly in green fields in the South and Midwest. CEO Mike Peter was spotted downtown at Mercado in December talking to consultant Scott Whitham; it wouldn’t surprise if the company came back this year with something conceptually similar—lots of rooms, ground-floor retail—but a much different look.”

Brokaw makes a reference to the inclusionary zoning slated for discussion next month, which is rumored to mandate affordable units in return for a larger footprint (rundown of how that works here). I also wonder if it will make reference to the “pillar” that Myrick mentioned previously – a taller, skinnier building, not as massive and perhaps only 3-4 floors over most of the site, and maybe a quarter of the site has a taller tower that’s 12 or 13 floors, whatever is permitted by the inclusionary zoning (strictly hypothetical, just one guess of many). Campus Advantage has plenty of time since they missed their original start date, but maybe later this year in the spring.

8. It’s always a brow-turner when a real estate listing is advertised as “a large corner lot ideal for a multi-unit development“. In this case, it’s a 0.2 acre double lot at 404 Wood Street in Ithaca’s South Side neighborhood. The listing offers the ca. 1938 house and lot for $250,000 (tax rolls say the property is assessed at $125,000; the current owner picked it up for just $34,000 in 1993).

Playing with some numbers a little bit, there are a couple of options if a buyer wanted to build something. The first and probably easier option would be to subdivide the lot and build on the vacant corner parcel. That would give, per R-3b zoning regulations of 40% lot coverage and 4 floors, about 1400 SF per floor. That gives 5600 SF, and if one assumes 15% off for circulation/utilities and 850 SF per unit, you get a 5 or 6 unit building at theoretical maximum.

If one were more brazen and tear down the 1938 house, one gets about 3,485 SF per floor, 13,940 SF at max height. That allows about 14 units using the same figures as above. But that might be tougher for neighbors to swallow. Anyway, if it sells and it looks like there’s a possibility, it’ll get a followup in a future news post.

9. Nothing to exciting on municipal planning agendas this week. The town of Lansing cancelled their meeting, and all the town of Ithaca had was a cell phone tower on West Hill. The city has a little more interesting. The duplex at 424 Dryden is examining unusual parking arrangements to save trees, and Habitat for Humanity is planning an affordable-housing owner-occupied duplex for vacant lots at 101-107 Morris Avenue in the city’s North Side neighborhood.

Morris Avenue has always had a focus on worker housing. As described in Ithaca’s Neighborhoods by Carol Sisler (1988), local businessman Morris Moscovitch built 16 nearly identical houses in 1908 to house worker’s families. But, with the effects of urban decay and urban renewal, only one of those 812 SF houses (109 Morris) is still standing today.

What Habitat for Humanity is proposing is to take the vacant lots at 101-105 Morris and 107 Morris (total 0.138 acres), combine them and create two new lots that will face Third Street. The new lots would need a zoning variance since they’re not wide enough (30′ and 30.98′, 35′ required). Being Habitat, these might take a little while to build and they probably won’t wow anyone design-wise, but there’s a lot of value to be placed in their “sweat equity” approach, and affordable owner-occupied housing is in severe need in Ithaca. Planner George Frantz is handling the application.

10. Lastly, for what is a very long post, the Hotel Ithaca’s revised CIITAP application to the Tompkins County IDA. Now that the project is approved by the city, they can work on a revised tax deal. According to the project memo, the sales, mortgage and property tax abatements will total $1.781 million on the $15 million project. The property tax abatement is the standard 7-year abatement, and will generate almost $1 million in new tax revenue during the abatement period. The project would retain 71 positions and create 21 new jobs, most of which appear to be less than living wage. The application does note, perhaps ominously, that non-approval would result in functional obsolescence – the hotel shuts down. The IDA plans to examine the application at their meeting in the county office building next Thursday.

Comments : 8 Comments »
Tags: affordable housing, ag quad, biggs parcel, collegetown, Cornell, fire station No. 9, hotels, ithaca, news, senior housing, suburbia, tompkins county
Categories : affordable housing, collegetown, Cornell, hotels, ithaca, news, rumor mill, senior housing, Tompkins County

Ithaca Marriott Construction Update, 12/2015

14 12 2015

With the foundation work completed, the downtown Ithaca Marriott is heading skyward, now up to the third floor as of these photos from last week. From Green Street, one can see the rising south stairwell, the future trash and recycling room (basement floor), future restrooms and offices on the lobby floor, and hotel rooms on the floors above the lobby. Also on the basement floor are the fitness center, maintenance and linen rooms, storage space and utilities. Delivery trucks will pull in and unload under the cavernous space on the left side of the second photo.

The lobby area facing Aurora Street may just be a concrete shell with some temporary lighting rigs at the moment, but in a year or so, that space will host a new 80-seat restaurant, which will be combination of lounge seats, bar seats and traditional tables. The kitchen and prep area will be set back from the street, facing the Green Street garage.

The second floor facing Aurora Street, which will have a glass curtain wall (or as it’s called in the elevations, a “thermally broken translucent linear channel glazing system”), will contain two large meeting rooms. 4 guestrooms will also be located on the second floor. Above that, the third floor will have 14 guestrooms, assuming the 2013 construction docs are still accurate.

The 10-story, 159 room hotel is expected to cost over $32 million and. According to the Ithaca Times, a general manager has been named and the hotel will officially open for its first guests on August 23rd, 2016. Suburban D.C.-based Urgo Hotels is the developer, Atlanta’s Cooper Carry Architecture is the designer, and William H. Lane Inc. of Binghamton (with a new Ithaca office as of last year) is the general contractor.